Anomaly
by Heart of a Dixon
Summary: Orphan Katie Calto, AKA Nira, had no idea that a simple trip to the movie theatre would send her hurtling through the mystery of the world of the Matrix. Just who were her parents? What was the significance of her appearance? And what on earth was with those odd glances Siren was giving her? OC/OC Sort of a love triangle of OCs on a ship run by the dynamic duo of Morpheus and Niobe
1. Welcome To The Real World

"Oh come on," I groaned, resting my forehead against the edge of my desk and banging my fist on its surface. "Don't do this to me now!"

My computer, which had been working without a hitch before two seconds ago, was now glitching out like crazy. I had been hacking into my school's database to "study" for a Spanish test I had tomorrow, but of course, when I really needed it to pull through, my computer just _would _go and pick up a random virus somewhere. I couldn't even override it.

The screen went blank.

I gripped the sides of the monitor and shook it. "No, no, no!"

I was brought up short when letters started streaming across the black screen. Short, blocky green letters similar to the text of a command prompt, spelled out, "We're watching you."

I narrowed my eyes at the screen, suspecting that my school had customized their firewall to keep kids out with an ominous-sounding message like that.

The next sentence sounded even more like a school-like phrase, but the addition of a name I only used on my computer made me suspect something else. "Free your mind, Nira."

I looked around my small room for any sign of the culprit, but I was alone besides my expansive computer system. I was proud of it; I had put it all together myself, tampering with its durability and memory capabilities and even hooking up an extra monitor.

"They're coming." That doesn't sound like school.

I jumped when a knock at my door reeled me back into reality.

"Yeah?" I called, not taking my eyes from the computer screen.

"Dinner time," said Miss Rachel Calto, the orphanage owner.

"I'll be right down," I said, my voice cracking.

I glanced at the clock on my desk and cursed. I would only be able to make it to the theatre in time to catch a movie with my friends if I powered my way through dinner and sped my way downtown. I shut my computer off and raced downstairs, ignoring the stares of the other orphans, and excused myself, heading outside and hopping into my car. I had saved up for years even before I had my license to buy this piece of decades-old junk.

I didn't make it to the theatre in time. The movie had already started and, though I could see my friends' cars, they were nowhere near where I was. Probably already inside.

"Damn," I breathed, doubling over to catch my breath.

No one was around as far as I could see.

But, as I leaned back against the wall, I heard a bunch of pairs of feet entering the lobby. I looked up, expecting to see another group of movie-watchers. They didn't look like any kind of people looking for a recreational activity.

There were 4 of them. One woman, three men. The bald man, who had on sunglasses with no side frames (incredible balance), appeared to be the leader. He was wearing what looked like a suit, but without the tux jacket. A black tie against a black overshirt were visible under his long, black leather trench coat.

The woman beside him had her hair pulled up into various knob-like formations atop her head, and a pair of sunglasses adorned her face. Actually, all of them were sheathed in some form of leather and a pair of sunglasses.

The two on the outside looked younger than the other two. Both were men, a bit older than me if I had to guess. One had dark brown hair and soft features. The other, slumping forward a bit under the weight of a large pack on his back, had shaggy blond hair.

I quickly came up with the excuse that they were probably coming to check out a sequel to some cult-classic or something and wore costumes, but they stopped a few yards away and just stood there.

I watched them out of the corner of my eyes, trying not to be rude and just stare at them.

I heard another couple of pairs of feet coming from the opposite end of the hall and looked up. Two men in fancy suits, crisp and ironed, were walking toward us.

I felt a bit left out when I noticed that they had sunglasses on, too. I didn't get it; we were indoors and it was nighttime. What was the point?

The additions to the hallway had what looked like wire earpieces. FBI? But what would they be doing in some rinky-dink old theatre?

"Just in time," muttered the woman bitterly.

"We must carry out our programming," one of men in the suits said. Both turned their heads to me and simultaneously spoke. "Destroy the anomaly."

I stood frozen. What the hell was going on here? And what did I have to do with these six strangers?

"You wont touch her," the bald man said, lifting a gun and leveling it at the men.

I cast an alarmed glance at each of them, unable to make sense of anything or even to make my voice work.

The men in the suits ignored the man's threat and began moving toward me. "Good-bye, Miss Anderson."

They must have the wrong person. My last name wasn't Anderson, it was Calto. That was the last name of every child at the orphanage.

I was about to tell them they were mistaken, that I wasn't this Anderson person, when the woman said, "Siren, Zephryos."

The blond and brown-haired men surged forward, appearing on either side of me as though they had appeared out of thin air. They fended off my attackers, lashing out with well-placed blows, in forms I was sure were martial arts techniques.

I pressed myself back up against the wall, frozen with shock. The woman appeared next to me and the bald man sent her a nod and went to assist the other two men.

The woman grabbed my elbow and gently tugged me forward. "Come on, we gotta get you outta here."

I followed her, allowing her to pull me along, staring at her uncomprehendingly as she urged me into the backseat of a sleek black car. I passed out before the engine was even started.

Oo0oO

When I woke up, I was being carried up flight after flight of stairs, the even ground covered with cracked checker-patterned marble, encrusted in dirt from years of disuse. I drifted in and out of unconsciousness for a while, never really awake enough to check and see who was carrying me or to make the connection that we were in an abandoned building.

When I finally woke fully, I was sitting in a red leather chair. There was a small table between myself and another red chair, occupied by the bald man.

"Katie Anderson?" the man asked, though it didn't sound as though he thought he could be wrong.

I shook my head, trying to quickly clear the cobwebs from my half-asleep brain. "Katie Calto. How do you know my name?"

He didn't answer, just smiled. "I also know you go by the hacker alias Nira."

My heart rate quickened. Surely I hadn't done anything that bad. "What are you? Government?"

He shook his head. "We're not here to hurt you, or arrest you, Nira. We're here to help you."

I narrowed my eyes at him. We were the only two in the room. "What are you talking about? And how do you know so much about me? And why do people keep calling me 'Anderson'?"

He chuckled. "You remind me of your father. He, too, had that same look in his eyes when we first met."

I started at the mention of a man I had never known.

"The look of someone who accepts what they see because they are expecting to wake up. Ironically this is not far from the truth."

"You… knew my father?" I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

He hesitated, but I could not see whatever emotion played behind those dark sunglasses. "Do you believe in fate, Nira?"

I shook my head. "No." I never had. It made me feel so… powerless.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my own life."

His grin widened, brightening the room with its glee. "You are your father's daughter. That was his exact answer."

I could see I wasn't going to get any more answers on who this mysterious man was, so I just listened, lest I get more question-answers.

He leaned back in the chair. "Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you cant explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but its there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me."

"Really? I thought it was your dominatrix-looking cronies," I grumbled, folding my arms.

He smirked. "Joking will not cover the truth you feel. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

I thought for a moment. Something I had uncovered weeks ago, in some illegal programming about some man named Morpheus, supposed to be a genius (surely this couldn't be him). I had spent a few weeks searching for him in other programs, but had no luck. And something else… "The Matrix?"

"Do you want to know what it is?"

Without pausing to think about what I might be getting myself into, I nodded.

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room."

I found it hard to doubt everything he was telling me. His tone indicated a wisdom I couldn't question.

"It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

I leaned forward, intrigued. "What truth?"

He leaned forward as well. "That you are a slave, Nira. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot taste or smell or touch. A prison…. For your mind." He leaned back again and sighed. "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver tin, opening it and dumping the contents into his hand. He leaned forward again. "This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back."

I felt an anxious sense of urgency settle over my decision. He opened his hand, revealing what looked like Advil. "You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed at the orphanage, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill-" he opened his hand again "-you come with us. And I can show you what you want to know."

I could see the panicked indecision flicker across my face in my reflection in his shades, but it was replaced by certainty. I reached for the red pill.

"Remember," he said, stopping my hand mid-air. "All I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I had some important questions that needed answering. And if this man had known my father, maybe he could show me where he was. I took the pill from his hand and popped it into my mouth, gulping down half of the glass of water he gave me.

He grinned. "Follow me." He stood and walked through a door.

I did as he said, trailing behind him into another dust-coated room.

"Are we on-line?" he asked as we entered.

The brown-haired man replied, "Almost." He was sitting in front of ridiculous amounts of computer screens with all kinds of different things scrolling along them.

"Time is always against us," Morpheus said, walking further into the room near a chair that looked more suited for torture than comfort. "Please, take a seat here."

I let out a sigh and shrugged, settling down into the chair.

The woman began attaching wires to my body, on the crease at my elbows, on my temples, the insides of my wrists. Switches were flipped, buttons were pressed, and for some reason a telephone was picked up off the hook and set on another contraption that looked vaguely like a modified fax machine.

"The pill you took is part of a trace program," Morpheus explained. "Its designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location."

"What does that mean?" I asked, panicking a bit more when I realized they were taking my vitals.

Morpheus smiled. "Be prepared for anything."

I nodded and let out a breath.

I sat there for a while before I noticed a cracked mirrored wall next to me. As I watched, something caused it to shimmer, waver and pull the cracks back together so that it was whole once more and my face was no longer distorted in its rifts. I lifted my hand to touch the mirror, but found my fingers sliding through some type of pudding-like silver substance. It stuck to my fingers and shimmered as I watched.

"Have you ever had a dream, Nira, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you be able to tell the difference in the dream world and the real world?"

I looked back down at my fingers. The goo was spreading, as if of its own accord, purposefully inching its way down my hand. "This isn't-"

"Isn't what? Isn't real?"

The silver stuff snaked its way liquidly up my arm, shocking me with its coldness. Soon it had encased my entire arm.

"Replication," the woman called out.

"Siren?"

"Still nothing," the brown-haired man replied.

I could feel it spreading, faster and faster, under my shirt, across my shoulders, up my neck. I opened my mouth, gasping in shock.

Morpheus popped open a cell phone and said, "Link, we need a signal. Now."

"Fibrillation," the woman called again.

"Siren, location," Morpheus requested calmly.

"Targeting almost there."

The liquid was reaching my face, sliding up onto my mouth as I gasped for every breath I took.

"Lock. I got her," Siren said.

"Now, Link, now," Morpheus demanded in a firm voice.

I screamed as the silvery goop spilled over my lips and down my throat.

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**Who missed me? :P So, as always, review and lemme know if I should continue :D Thanks for reading! **


	2. Introductions

I don't really remember much of my "awakening" besides the fact that I felt very weak, fragile, and sticky. "Welcome to the real world," was the only other thing I remembered. It was Morpheus's voice.

When I finally woke, I was in what looked like a room in a submarine. There was an IV bag hanging from the handle of one of the drawers above the bed. I sat up, feeling more well-rested than I ever had been. My long, black hair hung down to my hips like normal, my shoulders rolled without a problem, and my breathing was regular.

But as I looked down, I noticed my skin was pulled up at a strange angle. There was a thick needle-like thing going into my forearm. I gripped it tight and pulled on it. It felt like it was pulling out some vein. But, as I got the last of it out, I saw a circular fixture on my arm where the needle had been. It was metal and almost looked like a single-pronged plug outlet. I rubbed that spot, trying to rid myself of its soreness.

But my head felt a bit heavier. I slowly lifted a hand to touch the back of my head. I was just barely able to feel the metal of another fixture before the hatch-like door swung open.

Morpheus walked in, serenely as ever.

"Morpheus. Where am I? What is this place?"

He held up a finger. "More important than 'what' is 'when'."

"When?" I asked, unable to make sense of his cryptic answers.

"You believe the year is 2015. When actually, it is closer to 2215."

I looked down, unable to comprehend what he was telling me.

"I cant tell you exactly what year it is because we honestly don't know. There's nothing I can say that will explain it for you, Nira. Come with me. See for yourself."

I followed him, up a hatch and onto wire mesh flooring.

"This is my ship. The Nebuchadnezzar mark II. Your father was on the first Nebuchadnezzar with me." I didn't even bother asking about my dad anymore. "It's a hovercraft. This is the main deck."

I looked around at the mechanical inside of the ship, illuminated by bright white lights.

"This is the core, where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix. Most of my crew you already know."

I looked up at him.

He gestured to some of the people around us. "This is Niobe, co-captain of the ship," he laid a hand on her shoulder. "Siren," the brown-haired man. "and Zephryos," the blond.

I nodded at them each in turn.

"The only one you don't know is our operator. Link," he gestured to the dark-skinned man sitting beside a computer.

His hair was in shoulder-length dreads and he had a friendly smile. "God damn," he breathed. "She looks just like them."

I squinted my eyes at him.

"Link," Morpheus said, gesturing to me. "This is Nira."

He held out his hand and I shook it, sensing another source I might get parental information on.

"You wanted to know what the Matrix is, Nira?" Morpheus asked, drawing my attention again.

I nodded.

"Niobe," he said.

She stepped forward and assisted me to another chair like the one back at the abandoned building. I was a bit hesitant to sit down, due to my past experience with these people's seats, but I sat down all the same. She buckled my feet onto the metal pieces. I rested my head back as Morpheus demonstrated.

"This will feel a little weird."

I felt something enter the back of my head. My ears rang as the clicking of metal broke through. I should have been dead. Nothing could go that far into the back of your head and not kill you.

But, when I opened my eyes, I was standing in bright, white nothingness. I looked around, but there was nothing there. Maybe I had died after all.

"This," came Morpheus's voice. "is the construct."

I glanced back at where he stood, decked out in a fancy suit (an upgrade from the tattered rags he had been wearing on the ship) and, once more, a pair of sunglasses.

"Its our loading program. We can load anything from clothing to equipment, weapons, training simulations. Anything we need."

I cocked my head to the side, sensing more weirdness I wouldn't be able to comprehend.

NIOBE'S POV:

"I'm just saying, there's something screwy about the whole thing," Zephryos mumbled, glancing at Nira's "sleeping" body out of the corner of his eyes. "You heard those agents! 'Destroy the anomaly'? That sounds a little weird considering Neo was the last anomaly. And that's his daughter."

I rolled my eyes at him. "And _you _heard Morpheus. If there's anywhere that girl belongs, its with us. She's the daughter of two of the bravest people Zion ever saw."

"Yeah?" Zephryos asked, still tapping away at his leg with his fingers as we watched the scrolling glyphs on the Matrix feed. "Well if she belongs with us so much, why'd Neo and Trinity let their _daughter _grow up in the Matrix? Why not leave her in Zion where she could grow up knowing the truth?"

I glanced sharply at him. "It was Neo's decision. Trinity trusted his judgment and Morpheus and I do, as well."

"The last time Trin trusted Neo's judgment, it got her killed. What's that say about us and this girl? We're just supposed to trust her?"

My glare got colder. "I will not have you pinning the blame for a good friend's death on someone Morpheus and I cared about very much. You're lucky he isn't here to hear you. I'm a bit more forgiving. He would have you kicked off the ship and left for a stray sentinel."

My threat didn't have much merit after Neo's sacrifice had rid us most of the violent sentinels, but it was enough to shut him up at least.

I was glad Link was too absorbed in the matrix feed to pay any kind of attention to what Zeph was saying; it would only upset him. Link had trusted in Neo and Trinity with so much devotion that he couldn't help but put the same amount of faith into their daughter.

Link had been right. Nira did look a lot like both of them. The same black hair, longer than both her parents'. She had a mixture of her father's brown eyes and her mother's green. There was a grace with which she moved that undoubtedly came from Trinity. But within her questioning eyes was a suspicion that blended with her intuitive knowledge much as her father had. Her cheekbones, high like her father's, were covered with skin the exact shade of her mother's. I wasn't exactly sure where she got those freckles from, though.

"Here they come," Link mumbled, tapping away at the buttons on the keyboard.

I stood behind Morpheus and got ready to pull the plug out as did Siren with Nira. Siren had been suspiciously silent during my spat with Zephryos, staring broodingly at the Matrix feed.

When they came around, we unhooked them and Nira hopped up immediately. She didn't do anything I expected. She didn't vomit like her father. She didn't cry like her mother. She just passed out.

* * *

**Please review! I would love to hear your thoughts on all this! Thanks for reading! :) **


	3. Dojo

NIRA'S POV:

I awoke back in bed in that same room I had first regained conciousness in. "I cant go back, can I?" I whispered, sensing Morpheus's calming presence without even having to turn my head and look at him.

"No. But if you could, would you really want to?"

I thought about that. Knowing what I now knew, that the Matrix was my world, the fake world I had thought was real, did I really want to go back? I knew the answer. And I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.

"I realize what you saw and heard may have disturbed you a bit more than it was intended to. I owe you an apology for that. I have seen what the mind that has trouble letting go can do to its owner and I'm sorry for subjecting you to that dangerous possibility. I did what I did because I made a promise."

I did turn my head this time.

But Morpheus wasn't looking at me. He was gazing intensely at the ground.

"When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted. To remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us. Taught us the truth. As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free. After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there were those of us who had spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him. He was the one. And I found him. 17years ago." He looked down at me then.

I wasn't sure exactly why he was telling me this, but he seemed to be leaking tiny bits of information to me, trying to get me to understand something without having to tell me. But all I was getting were the words coming out of his mouth. I sensed no double meanings or insincerity.

He frowned at the lack of understanding in my eyes, but stood. "Get some rest. You're going to need it."

"For what?" I asked, sitting up as he reached the door.

He turned back to me, a hint of a smile on his face. "Your training."

I didn't know what the hell that was supposed to mean, but he didn't give me time to ask questions as he left the room and shut the door behind him. I passed out again pretty quickly after he left.

Oo0oO

The next morning, I stood from my bed stiffly. There were no clocks and even if there were, from what Morpheus told me, I wouldn't trust them anyway. But my body felt like it was two in the morning.

I left my room, stretching my limbs and making my way around the confusing place. I stumbled upon a place where the guy with brown hair, Siren I thought, was working on some wiring in one of the chairs.

Link, the operator, was already up and energized in his seat in front of his feeds. "Morning," he called over his shoulder.

I looked over his arm as he tapped at the keys. "You don't have any…" I trailed off, unsure whether this was considered rude or not, as well as unsure what to call them.

"Holes?" he asked, with a good-humored smile. He shook his head. "No. I wasn't born in the Matrix. I was born in the real world. In Zion."

"Zion?" I asked.

He grinned fondly, thinking of his home. "Zion is the last human city. You'll love it there. Your parents did."

"My… parents?" the word seemed unnatural and awkward coming out of my mouth.

I noticed Siren look up out of the corner of my eyes, but when I glanced back at him, he was studiously paying too much attention to his task.

Link's face lost its smile only for a moment. "They were good people. Both born in the Matrix and freed by Morpheus. Your father's name was Thomas Anderson. He went by the alias Neo. Your mother went by Trinity. You father saved Zion and ended the war."

Morpheus's words from last night sunk in. "The one," I whispered, my ears ringing. This was too much information to process in the short amount of time I had been given. "So what, you're saying my dad was some kind of legend? Some kind of hero?"

He nodded solemnly. "Your mom, too. They gave their lives to protect us. Apparently not before they had you, though. We didn't even know Trinity was pregnant."

"So w-why'd they send me to grow up in the Matrix instead of in Zion?"

"That's a good question," came a sly voice. "One I'd like to know the answer to as well." I turned to see the blond man, Zephryos, slink out from the shadows, a cocky smirk on his angular face.

Link cast him a brief glance of distaste before turning back to me and saying, "We don't know why. But Neo must've had his reasons." He looked back at the Matrix feed. "He knew what he had to do." His tone took on a faraway, dreamy lilt. "Anyway, I'm ready to see what you're capable of. Being the daughter of Neo _and_ Trin. So let's get to it."

I was escorted by a very quiet Siren into one of the chairs he wasn't working on.

"What are we doing?" I whispered to him as he strapped my wrists in.

He barely glanced up at my face with bright blue eyes. "He's downloading training programs into your mind, so you know how to protect yourself when you go into the Matrix." His voice was pleasant, but very quiet. When he was done securing me into the chair, he went back to tinkering with the other chair.

Zephryos stood by Link, watching the green encoded symbols drifting downward on the screen. A ringing noise sounded in my ears again, and my mind seemed to tense up. My eyes squeezed closed and I grunted with the effort of not yelling. But no other sound would come out of my throat. I opened my eyes, gasping when the ringing stopped.

We repeated the process all day. Or at least I think it was all day.

Then Morpheus wandered over and said, "Show me what you've learned." He was hooked up to another chair and we were sent into what looked like a dojo.

Morpheus was wearing a black and white karate uniform. And I was wearing the same, only mine was white with black trim and mine seemed too big on me.

"This is a sparring program," he explained, sweeping his arm wide to include the whole place. "Similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the same basic rules. Like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different than those of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others…" he gave a mischievous smirk. "Broken. Understand?"

I nodded.

"Then hit me. If you can," he ordered quietly.

I used a taunt I had learned during my training before the fight began. And Morpheus used one as well, but I'm sure his looked more graceful and well-practiced than mine.

I surged forward, striking out with my fist, aiming for his chest, his stomach, his face, anything I could reach. But he stopped me mid-blow every time.

I whirled around, my hair flying around me as I tried to lash out at his back. He blocked me again, though, swatting my hand away.

I decided to switch it up and started using my feet to attack his legs. But either his arms or his legs caught my attacks each time again. I feinted a kick at his knee and quickly change course, aiming for his stomach. He caught my foot between my hands.

My eyes widened when I realized what he would do. He twisted as I jumped up with my other foot to prevent its breaking. I spun in the air a few times before hitting the ground, knocking the breath out of me. I wasn't about to let my guard down, though. I rolled over sideways, still keeping him within my line of sight, and raised my fists to defend myself.

"Good!" he said. "Adaptation. Improvisation. But your weakness is not your technique."

I nodded, and, hoping to distract him, hopped up and kicked at his head. He ducked just in time and spun around, using the force of his turn to drive his foot outward over my own head.

The blows and blocks continued, him hitting at me, me hitting at him, and almost every time I was knocked to the ground.

I wasn't sure where my sudden flexibility came from. Maybe it was the adrenaline and anger at being beaten so much. Maybe it was the bending of those rules like gravity. And maybe it was that training I had done.

But I turned my back on Morpheus and leaned backward, throwing myself onto the palms of my hands. I flipped in an arc over him, expecting him to be surprised or caught off guard so I could get a hit in, but the moment my feet touched the floor, one of his feet slammed into my stomach and sent my flying backward until I hit the wall and fell to the floor.

"How did I beat you?" he asked with that infuriating calm.

I gasped and sat up. "You're too fast, you block every move I make."

He folded his arms. "Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place?"

I shook my head. "I guess not."

He leaned down to me. "You think that's air your breathing?"

I looked up at him, but he merely raised his brows innocently.

He straightened and turned away from me, walking forward a bit. "Again!" he called loudly.

I was still on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I stood and readied myself to fight again. I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as Morpheus acted out his stance.

I brought both hands in an arc around me, turning my head backward and then back to him with my hands. I made a Y with my thumb and pinkie and shook it in front of my face, giving him a cocky smirk.

His eyes widened a bit in surprise, but he came forward at me all the same. It seemed a bit easier after the deep breathing to be able to keep my focus and block more of his advances.

I took each hit he dealt me without falling over, only letting out a grunt or two. I hit out sideways with my hands, but his arm was blocking me.

Sheer anger erupted within me, seeming to make my hands blur with their movement, all over the place at once. They hit him in the stomach, knocking him back a bit and, in a flash even I could barely catch, were poised in a fist three inches from his face.

I backed off, a bit shocked at the progress I had made.

Without taking his smug eyes off my face, he called out, "Link! Load the jump program!"

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**And here's where things get interesting :D Please, someone review. I'm getting lonely :( Thanks for reading! **


	4. The Jump

NIOBE'S POV:

We all stood around the Matrix feed, watching with intense fascination as Morpheus and Nira fought. Her hands blurred as she moved, catching Morpheus by surprise. That was an action I had only seen accomplished by Neo and the agents.

"I don't believe it," Zeph breathed as things in the sparring program settled down.

"I do," Link said calmly. Link cocked his head to the side, listening through his headset to Morpheus. "Jumping time," he chuckled.

"What happens if she makes it?" Siren asked worriedly, running a hand through his brown hair.

"Nobody ever makes it their first time," Zephryos muttered.

We watched anxiously as Morpheus displayed his lack of gravitational pull and jumped the impossible gap between buildings.

Nira was left on her own, pep-talking to herself. Then she ran. Her foot touched the edge of the ledge on the top of the building and pushed off.

I was expecting for her to fall immediately, plummeting toward the street below like everyone else in the world. But she flew. Her feet were carried weightlessly across thin air, until they touched the rooftop Morpheus had landed on. We were all too stunned to speak. Even Link.

NIRA'S POV:

When I was unplugged from the chair, everyone regarded me curiously. And one almost fearfully. Siren threw me a panicked glance and then took off, but I was the only one that noticed.

"How did you do that?" Niobe asked me gravely.

"I-" I shook my head, not knowing how to continue or explain. I had just kind of… done it. Morpheus even looked a bit troubled. "I thought I was supposed to do that," I mumbled, a bit embarrassed by everyone's attention.

Zephryos scoffed and turned, his blond hair shaking with his head. I thought I heard him mumble, "An anomaly among anomalies," but I wasn't sure what he meant. It tickled something in the back of my mind. Some far away muddled memory of an old, falling down movie theatre.

Eventually everyone laid off of me when they discovered I had no answers to their questions, but they still gave me anxious looks every now and then. Like I was going to explode at any minute.

Finally, I was too exhausted to go on anymore and I went back to my room and fell asleep.

Oo0oO

I was almost sure I was dreaming, but I couldn't make sense of what the voices were saying. They were faint and echo-y.

"What does it mean, Morpheus?" asked a woman's voice.

"I don't know. If she really is an anomaly-"

"Of course she is, you heard those agents!"

"Shut up, bro," came a small, disgruntled voice.

"If she is an anomaly… Then something's wrong in the Matrix."

"Well, maybe that's why Neo wanted her in the Matrix. So she could fix it," offered the female voice.

"Maybe. I believe that what we saw tonight was proof. Something is wrong, something that could start another war. If it hasn't already without our knowledge."

I drifted back to sleep again, giving up on making sense of the garbled voices. But my consciousness faded back in for a few more moments a while later.

That small, quiet voice was closer this time, and alone. "What if you are an anomaly? What does that mean for us? What does that mean for me?"

I vaguely remembered feeling that that last question sounded a bit selfish.

"If the Oracle was right…" the voice trailed off into a whisper. "What do I do?"

* * *

**I'm seriously thinking about discontinuing this. I'm getting no reviews on this story :/ There's that chapter. If I can get a few more reviews, I will continue it. **


	5. Agents, Sentinels, and Oracles

MORPHEUS'S POV:

Just for a few moments when we were in the sparring program, I saw so much of Neo in her. The quiet, cocky young man I had freed. Trinity was represented, too, in the silent assessments and quick wits.

But when she had swung her Y-shaped hand in front of her face... it was like he was still there in that very room with us.

So many things when I was talking to Nira that I found were like an exact copy of my time with her father.

But her appearance was probably not a good thing. It foreshadowed something far worse than I could have imagined. If one anomaly appeared so close to the last... And a female! I wasn't sure if there had ever even been a female anomaly. And certainly not one related directly to the last one.

I had to have faith in her, though. Neo knew what he was doing.

NIRA'S POV:

I walked along the busy sidewalks of New York, Morpheus leading the way and talking to me as if none of the people around us could hear. I bumped into a few, but they took little to no notice of me.

"The Matrix is a system, Nira. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are a part of that system and that makes them our enemy."

As we passed a man sitting on a bench, he lowered his newspaper to glare at me, as though contemplating how best to kill me without drawing attention to himself.

"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

As I walked, I saw a man dressed differently than the rest of the black-suited business people around us. He was handsome, dark hair and a white shirt unbuttoned to the top of a chiseled chest. His clothes were a bright, standing out considerably in the crowd. When he smiled at me, the corners of his blue eyes crinkled, mesmerizing me into watching him go by and making Morpheus's words seem like insignificant buzzing.

"Were you listening to me, Nira? Or were you watching that man?"

I looked up at him. "I was-"

"Look again."

I narrowed my eyes at him in suspicion, but turned to find him again. Instead, I was brought face to face with a gun. I gasped and ducked under it.

"Freeze it!" Morpheus called. Everything around us stopped. The birds, the people, the water in the fountain at the park across the street.

I recognized the man holding the gun. He was one of the men I had seen in the movie theatre. The guys with the fancy suits.

"This isn't the Matrix?" I asked.

Morpheus shook his head no. "Its another training program designed to teach you one thing: If you are not one of us, you are one of them."

"What are they?"

"Sentient programs. They can move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system. That means that anyone we haven't unplugged is potentially an agent." He nodded to the "agent". "Inside the Matrix, they are everyone, and they are no one."

"Real straightforward, there," I mumbled, still staring at the agent.

"We have survived by hiding and running from them, but they are the gatekeepers. They're guarding all the doors and holding all the keys. Which means that sooner or later, someone will have to fight them."

The meaning of his words clicked. "Someone?" I asked suspiciously.

"I wont lie to you, Nira," Morpheus continued. "Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an agent, has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed."

"Why?" I asked. If what I was hearing was correct, even my father, the prophesied "One" had died. Probably fighting these agents.

"I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and speed are still based in a world built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be."

I looked away from him. "What are you saying? That I can dodge bullets?"

He grinned. "No, Nira. Your father thought the same. But, I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready... You wont need to."

We were pulled out of the Matrix and Morpheus stood to examine me, seeming about to say something, when Link called to him, "We got trouble, sir!" He wasted no time running to his aid.

I followed a bit slower, Zephryos in front of me, Niobe already there, and Siren behind me. The ship rocked and I fell back, into Siren. But he had lifted his arms just in time.

"Sorry," I mumbled, blushing when his blue eyes fell on me.

"No prob."

I continued on into the hull of the ship where Morpheus and Niobe were sitting in two side-by-side chairs. Niobe appeared to be driving.

On a holographic pop-up doohickey, I saw what looked like a sideways jellyfish, with a bulbous head and ridiculous amounts of flagellum.

"What's that?" I asked quietly.

Siren, who was a bit closer to me than the rest, didn't look away from it, but answered me anyway. "A sentinel. A killing machine designed for one thing."

"Search and destroy," Zephryos muttered.

"Only the stray ones attack our ships anymore after the war was ended. The rebellious strays anyway. But they're still highly dangerous."

Niobe seemed to park the ship in an opening in the metal field we had been maneuvering through.

Morpheus picked up a radio and spoke into it. "How're we doing, Link?"

The lights went off and the whirring of the craft ceased.

"Our power's offline and the EMP is charged, sir."

"EMP?" I whispered, my voice seeming louder than necessary in the quietness of the ship.

Siren leaned closer so I could hear him. "Electromagnetic pulse. It disables any electrical system in the blast radius. It's the only weapon we have against the machines."

"Its passed," Niobe whispered after a while. "I should be able to maneuver around it."

Morpheus nodded her on and she started the ship back up.

I made my way back to the feed where Link was sitting and Morpheus came with me.

"Bring the ship up to broadcast depth," he told Link. "We're going in. I'm taking Nira to see her." He turned and walked away.

Link became a bit more solemn.

"See who?" I asked.

He looked up slowly. "The Oracle."

Oo0oO

"We're in." Morpheus hung the phone up and the five of us walked outside.

Zephryos and Niobe stayed behind at the place where we had come out at, but Morpheus, Siren, and I got into a black car and rolled down the street.

I came into the Matrix in a black leather pair of pants, and a black leather bodice. I gazed down at it, grimacing at the feel of being too noticeable among the crowds of people in the street.

I watched the world outside my window, noting every small detail and marveling at how big a software system would have to be to contain this much information. "I have memories," I whispered. "of my life before. None of them really happened. What does that mean?" I looked over at Siren.

His sunglasses allowed his eyes to give nothing away. "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."

"But an Oracle can?" I challenged.

"That's different," he responded automatically, almost defensively, then looked out the window.

"Did you go to her?" I asked, brushing my black hair over my shoulder.

"Yes," he replied without looking back at me.

"What did she tell you?"

He sighed lightly, his shoulders seeming to slump the tiniest bit.

But the car stopped in front a building before he could tell me.

"Come with me," Morpheus ordered from the front seat.

I followed him as he got out of the car and into the building's elevator. "Is this the same Oracle that made the... prophecy?" I asked hesitantly, gazing down at my long-heeled leather combat boots.

"Yes. She's very old. She's been with us since the beginning."

"The beginning? Of what?"

"Of the Resistance."

"And she knows all?" I asked in a mocking voice.

Morpheus grinned. "She would say she knows enough."

"Modest Oracle," I speculated quietly. After a few second of silence, I asked, "So then she's never wrong?"

Morpheus looked down. "Try not to think of it in terms of right and wrong. She is a guide, Nira. She can help you to find the path."

"And she helped you?"

He nodded.

"What did she tell you?"

He smiled. "The foretelling the Oracle applied to me has already passed. It had to do with your father." The elevator door opened and he stepped out.

"So she told you that you'd find the one," I mumbled to myself, stepping out behind him.


End file.
